Short Sales and Electronic Signatures

I was so excited to see electronic signatures become acceptable in Georgia. In the comfort of my home I can fill out contracts, email them to clients for signatures, and have them returned to me via email. NO MORE PAPER! Now lets talk short sales. I happily sent two separate banks two purchase and sale agreements. What lending institution would not be happy to receive an offer on their distressed property? In both cases the bank rejected the offers because of the purchase and sale agreements. They would not accept electronic signatures! If we wanted to use these contracts we would have to fill out additional paperwork that required regular signatures! I was back to paper! So much for a good idea.

It's Ground Hog Day

I was watching Ground Hog Day over the weekend with my son. This was the movie with Bill Murray where he went to Punxsutawney PA, as a newscaster, to report on Ground Hog Day. He ends up repeating the same day over and over in the town until eventually the cycle is broken. (I do not explain movies very well!) Ground Hog Day would be the perfect theme for a lot of clients I am dealing with in North Georgia. The Atlanta area had a good year last year. Reports of a 1 to 2% price increase, lower inventory, and new construction. That is great news for an area that went down approximately 30% after the market peaked in 2005! Unfortunately we have sellers who had bought their home at the peak of the market. They also put additional money into their home as upgrades. Our sellers are under the impression that the market has turned around to the point that they can receive a higher amount for their home. The reality is that when a market goes down 30% and has since gone up 2%, we have a long way to go. In other words it is Ground Hog Day: Bill Murray has woken up in bed to the same Atlanta housing market he saw last year. Bottom line: Yes our market is doing better but it is not back to the 2005 levels. Our sellers need to take this into account when they decide to sell their home.

MY POCKETS ARE FULL...OF "POCKET LISTINGS"

I know that most of you have never heard this phrase from your friend or neighbor (sarcasm): "If you know somebody who is looking for a home in our neighborhood bring them to my home, I am willing to sell". Yes they are willing to sell: •If the buyer is an all cash buyer so we do not have to have an appraisal •The buyer will pay top dollar for my home including everything I have done to the home •The buyer will close when it is convenient for me •I do want to sell but under my terms My partner and I have pockets full of our neighbor's "pocket listings". We appreciate them giving us the opportunity to sell their home but we are scratching our head on why they will not list with us. Why won't they list their home? •They do not want to pay commission? •They do not want people seeing their home on the internet? •They do not want the neighbors to know they are trying to move? •They do not want to show their home too much? We are trying to wrap our hands around this to give these potential sellers the reasons why they need to list their homes with an agent. •Our neighborhood has no new construction. Buyers have seen the existing inventory and have decided not to come into our neighborhood to look further. They have no idea about these "pocket listings". •We get clients when they find our listings on the internet, or drive into our neighborhood and see our signs. If they do not see a home they like they will not contact us. Therefore we do not get the chance to meet with them and show them our additional "pocket listings". If over 90% of potential buyers start their search on the internet then there is a good chance the "pocket listing" will never be seen. To my fellow real estate agents? What do you think? Meanwhile I remember as a kid when I had army men, bubble gum, pennies, rocks, marbles, and baseball cards shoved in my pants pockets. Ultimately my mom would end washing my pants along with their contents. Unfortunately we do not have a washer big enough to wash my pants with all of these pocket listings. Have a great holiday!

BUT ITS A USED HOUSE!

Here is a trend we are seeing in the North Georgia real estate market: BUT THE HOME IS OVER 10 YEARS OLD! WHY WOULD I BUY THIS HOME WHEN THERE IS SO MUCH TO DO! I live in the only golf course/boat community on Lake Lanier. One hour north of Atlanta it is truly a resort lifestyle experience. Unfortunately there is no new construction going on in the neighborhood! Why? Because the North Georgia area is slower than closer into the city. Because the North Georgia area does not have the jobs and we are too far to commute everyday into Atlanta. We are becoming a quasi retirement area where the empty nesters move to get away from the suburbs! This means that there is not enough demand to bring builders into our neighborhood to build specs. So here comes our clients who have waited for the opportunity to move into this neighborhood. Kids gone, golf clubs in the car, they are finally ready to buy after many years of driving the neighborhood looking for their future dream home. Those houses they have seen for years have grown older. Their dreams have been wiped out because they wanted a brand new, fully updated home, at a foreclosure price! Where is this home? The home has aged. If you want the newest and greatest build a new home. They do not want to because that would cost too much! I want a new home but at a deeply discounted resale price! They drive home dejected and confused. This is not fair. I should be able to have it all at a low price. Just not fair. So they go back to their existing home, read some real estate articles, watch HGTV, decide if they want to move or upgrade their current "older" home, and wait for the next "new older home" to appear in our neighborhood for sale. The cycle then continues.

HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH?

How much is too much? As agents we always go above and beyond. My partner and I live in a neighborhood one hour north of Atlanta. We have each lived there for 12 years and have been #1 for resales the past four years. Here is our scenario: We have a listing in our neighborhood. Our sellers had lost one contract and were anxious to sell. Homes sell here but at a slower pace. My partner receives a call from an individual who lives in Atlanta. She has one family member who lives in our neighborhood and has another family member who is moving to Atlanta from out of state. She saw our listing on the internet and thought it would be a good fit. My partner showed this individual the home a few times. Eventually the prospective buyer came in to see the home. Overall my partner was the only one who ever showed any of the family members the home. Enter the buyer’s agent. During the looking phase the individual Atlanta said that she had an agent who was going to assist her family member who was going to buy the home. Here is where it got interesting. This agent never showed his client the home. When we eventually asked him to show the home he said he did not have a lock box key, does commercial real estate, and had a bad back. Not only did he not show the home, he was not present for the inspection, appraiser, and the final walk through. He asked my partner to meet the above individuals. When it came to contracts, the buyer’s agent did not have access to residential contracts. Matter of fact my partner had to fill out parts of the purchase and sale agreemet, disclosures, amendments, and counteroffers. My partner did everything. Then there was the commission. Throughout the process the buyer’s agent claimed he was entitled to his commission. At the same time we had the following information for this listing: “If we show your buyer our listing, you receive 1%”. He did not see this because he did not access to our listing services FMLS and GAMLS. After conferring with our broker we put together a smaller commission for the buyer’s agent. Needless to say that did not go over well. At the closing the buyer’s agent used some new adjectives to describe my partner, broker, and myself. Eventually we settled the commission. So how do you handle this? We had a seller who needed to sell and we had made commitment to do this. We had a buyer, first time homebuyer, who did not know the proper protocol when it comes to working with an agent. How much is too much?

Atlanta Area Real Estate Summary

I was recently able to attend a real estate class highlighting national and local real estate trends. This is our commitment to stay as informed as possible about our industry and how it affects our clients. Our Atlanta area buyers and sellers • Have been on the sidelines • Have been shifting from higher end consumer stores to outlets • Have a consumer confidence, according to surveys, double of 2009 levels but approximately 60% of 2007 levels (national level) • Have seen an increase of 68,400 jobs in Georgia January 2012 vs. January 2011 • Are part of one of the top 25 US job growth markets in the country • Unemployment in the Georgia Mountain Region is 8.3%. Specifically 10.1% in Dawson, 8.2% in Forsyth, 10.1% in White, 9.25% in Hall, 9.2% in Gwinnett, and 10.8% in Lumpkin • Unemployment in the Atlanta Region is 9.3%. This includes Cobb, Fayette, and Rockdale Counties • Median income (2010) in Forsyth County is $95,906, Dawson $58,766, Lumpkin $46,360, White County $42,487, Hall County $56,240 and $81,904 in Gwinnett National Home Sales • 11973 homes sell every day. Of those, 8501 receive a mortgage • 25% of home sales are distressed property sales. This compares with 35% in January 2012 • Months inventory of homes for sale have gone from approximately 9 months to approximately 6.5 months, June 2012 vs. June 2011 • 30 year fixed mortgage rates started at 4.75% in January 2011. Today they are averaging between 3.75% and 4% • California is #1 for amount of homeowners who have negative equity in their homes • Total homes sales 4Q 2011 were approximately 4,300,000 units vs. 4,600,000 units in 4Q 2012 • The highest foreclosure inventory are in Nevada, Hawaii, Florida, Illinois,NY,NJ,and Maine • Florida, 11.9%, has the most foreclosures in process • NY and NJ have the most months of shadow inventory. (shadow inventory are houses owned by HUD, banks and other organizations) Atlanta area home market • Atlanta metro area is comprised of 28 counties including Dawson, Hall, and Forsyth • 65% of the growth in the last 20 years has been north of the Atlanta airport, 35% to the south • Home inventory is shrinking. In the Atlanta metro area there were approximately 42,000 homes for sale in 2010, 25,000 homes in 2011, and 22,000 homes available in 2012! • Median home price (2010) was $230,598 for Forsyth, $134,000 for Gwinnett, $124,500 for Lumpkin, $119,500 for White, $125,000 for Hall, and $156,775 for Cherokee • There are 795 new home subdivisions in the 22 county area • 48% of the building permits in the 22 county areas were for Gwinnett and Forsyth County. In the last 12 months Forsyth has had more building permits than Gwinnett. • There are 285,000 developed lots in the Atlanta area waiting for a house! • 45% of the builders in the Atlanta area are national builders a very large increase • In 2000-2007 land represented 25-43% of the total cost of a new home. That percentage will drop to 18-22% • 70% of all 2011 sales were homes priced under $149K • In the 2011 the lowest number of sales were in the $250K to $750K range! Summary The home sales in our area are a direct reflection of the above statistics. The majority of our transactions for 2012 took place in Forsyth, Gwinnett, and Fulton Counties. One home was under contract in 2 days, one in 6 days, and one in under 30 days! Pockets of Dawson County, especially the Chestatee golf/Lake Lanier community, continue to sell but at lower prices. Counties to the north of Dawson are receiving lower amounts of traffic and are under pricing pressure. This pricing pressure is a result of their median income, unemployment rate, and the high amount of second home properties available for sale. We have not seen pricing go any lower for homes. However they continue to “bump” along with no large price appreciation. Resale homes in Forsyth and North Fulton, priced well, are selling quickly near full asking price. Multiple full price offers have also happened in these areas in resale and foreclosure properties. We are telling our buyers that the conditions are not going to get any better. Interest rates are ridiculously low but cannot stay this way forever. Property prices are not going any lower and the inventory is shrinking. This is the time to buy!

Keller William #1 by JD Power and Associates

This is an excerpt from a recent article: "Several companies withstood the test of customer satisfaction-at least by the standards of 2990 evaluations and more than 2790 respondents. These included KELLER WILLIAMS, which JD Power found ranking highest in both buyer and seller categories, with lofty scores among agents and salespeople to boot" I know that the majority of my fellow real estate agents are doing their best in this incredibly challenging market. Unfortunately the survey did not rate real estate agents high overall. Buyers and sellers remain disappointed because of the market and their inability to get the price they want on their home. They take out their disappointment on us, the agent. We don't control the market! Hang in there.